


you went through me headfirst

by firstaudrina



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:53:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22357486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/pseuds/firstaudrina
Summary: Dan wants to forget everything that came before Rome and everything that'll come after.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf, Dan Humphrey/Georgina Sparks, Nate Archibald & Dan Humphrey
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	you went through me headfirst

It doesn't take long.

The first night they're there, before their bags are even unpacked, before Dan can even scout out a decent place to get drunk, Georgina backs him up against the closed door and slides her hand into his jeans.

"I didn't sign up for this," Dan says.

"Oh come on," she says. "You know you want it."

Dan doesn't want it, actually. Dan doesn't want anything except to lay in that bed over there for as many hours of the day as he feasibly can. Dan doesn't want anything except to get drunk. Dan wants to find a way to take this ball of anger and bitter sadness in his chest and numb it, kill it, extinguish it. That's what Dan wants.

Georgina's mouth is at his throat, a hint of teeth, and she's already got his jeans open. "You can turn me around if you want," she says teasingly. "Pretend I'm your Snow White. Though that might be hard since my tits are bi-"

Dan kisses her to shut her up, mainly.

Not that it matters what he does anymore. He's not anybody's boyfriend.

They fall onto the bed, which creaks under their combined weight. Georgina grips his hair tightly, knees digging into his sides. Dan wishes he could bury his face in her brown hair and pretend, but it would be impossible – she doesn't smell like Blair or feel like Blair, she doesn't touch him like Blair does. She's not Blair. She's just another kind of shot.

But Georgina is familiar at least, and he knows how to do this with her. Georgina is teeth and fighting and shoving, rough and messy. She's not Blair. Dan liked to spend hours with Blair when he got the chance. He liked to drag his mouth over her ribs, leave marks on her thighs, make her gasp. He liked to fuck her slow and breathless. He liked to go down on her afterwards; she would tremble trying to keep herself still, grasping sheets or pillows. Every time it was like he was trying to make up for the first. Like if he gave her enough orgasms she wouldn't leave him.

Georgina takes the lead, which is fine since Dan's not really trying. She gets him out of his clothes impatiently, yanking his shirt off, getting hers open, and tugging his jeans down. He has to admire the way her breasts fill out her black lace bra, straining against the fabric as she arches her back, a pointed and showy gesture.

"I get it," he mumbles into her skin, pushing the straps off her shoulders, "They're nice." He presses a kiss to the swell of her breast, sliding his hand over the other, tugging the lace down.

But Georgina doesn't have time to waste and it's not long before she's pushing at his shoulders so he'll slide down her body, trail his mouth over her sensitive stomach. It makes him think of the baby, bizarrely and suddenly. They'd had sex once after the baby and she hadn't even wanted to take her clothes off. Her body was soft and different, her _skin_ felt different, and he doesn't remember her finishing, though she was the one who started it.

Dan makes himself forget that too. He wants to forget everything that came before Rome and everything that'll come after.

She's wearing leather pants, tight and snug over her hips, not like any mother of his recollection. Dan peels them off then hooks his fingers over the sides of her panties to pull those off too. They don't have a son. Dan doesn't have a son or a girlfriend or friends, just a book that made everyone hate him and another on the way that'll finish the job.

Georgina parts around his fingers. Responsiveness was always one of her rare good points. Dan hasn't even really done anything yet (and anyway, he's going the lazy route) but her legs fall open and she moans nicely. It's startling in the room's stillness. He circles her clitoris with his tongue, massages it with his fingers, gets her wet enough that she's gripping his hair roughly and yanking him back up. "Enough dicking around," she says, because she's a straight-to-the-point kind of girl (just the kind of girl he likes), reaching down to wrap a hand around him.

"Like hell I'm fucking you without a condom," he says, adding belatedly, "again."

Georgina laughs, accuses, "Goody two shoes."

"Psycho," he counters. He leans over the bed, not quite sure where his pants landed, feeling around in the dim-dark until he finds them.

Georgina runs restless sharp nails over his back and then bites his shoulder hard. "Hurry _up_."

"Ow," he snaps, swatting at her before sitting back, wallet in hand. He studies her spread out in front of him. "I'm your free pass, huh?"

Georgina studies him right back. Her fingers slip idly between her legs, rubbing herself. "Don't tell Philip," she says with a slow smile, "But I have a _lot_ of free passes."

Dan almost laughs, leaning over her again and positioning himself. "I'm not special, then."

"Oh, baby, don't say that," she says in that fake sugar-sweet way of hers. He presses into her, thrusts hard, and Georgina gasps, grins. "I've got a special place in my heart for you."

Dan closes his eyes, turning his face away. He wishes he hadn’t brought anyone to Rome, just came by himself to stew in his own resentment, to drink espresso and pick up Italian girls. To be alone, to be lonely; lonely boy, a pseudonym that never really left him. Loneliness never truly leaves you, or at least it's never left Dan.

Georgina's voice is soft, insidious. She's grasping his hair with one hand so tight it hurts, nails of the other biting into his side, her heels digging into the backs of his legs. Georgina's going to leave him bruised, which is what he wants, he supposes. "You miss her," Georgina says, "Don't you?"

Dan's hand in her hair tightens. "Shut up," he says.

"You wish you were fucking her right now." Georgina's mouth is close to his ear, her voice punctuated with breathiness, starts and stops. She moans then, a loudly fake one, and says in a fair approximation of Blair's voice (if not Blair's sentiment), "Oh, Brooklyn, harder!"

"Shut _up_ ," Dan says again, pulls her hair sharply for emphasis.

"You don't like that?" she asks innocently. She leans up to kiss him but Dan flinches away. Undeterred, she kisses his neck. "I'm awfully good at playing pretend –"

Dan slips his arm around her so he can flip them over, which Georgina evidently likes if her sharp laugh is anything to go by. She leans her hands on his chest, looking down at him, waiting.

"I don't want to pretend," Dan says.

Georgina is moving her hips lazily, head tilting back, long dark hair spilling over her shoulders. "Okay," she says. She looks back at him. He'd forgotten her eyes, pale and distinctly gray. "What do you want, Dan?"

To forget _her_. To somehow erase the last two years of his life.

Georgina covers his hands with hers, curls her fingers around his wrists and then pushes them above his head. She makes him hold one of the iron bars of the headboard. Dan knows better than to move.

"What do you want, Dan?" she asks again, scratching her nails down his chest, the movements of her hips quickening, becoming more erratic.

Dan watches her through half-closed eyes. "Nothing," he says. Her eyes are shut tight now, hands on herself. "Nothing you can give me."

Dan doesn't sleep that night. Georgina does, plastered against his back, arm around his chest and leg draped over his hip. He thinks she does it just to be annoying, even subconsciously.

For the first few weeks, it's a cycle of drinking and fucking; wine from mid-afternoon long into the night, parties and clubs Georgina drags him around to, back to the room where they roll around for a few hours, sleep, wake up, coffee, repeat. Someone recognizes him once, a heady experience. Georgina brings home other guys sometimes and locks Dan out in the hallway all night. Dan refuses to talk about Blair or think about Blair or remember that out in the world there is someone named Blair Waldorf with whom he's in love. He doesn't attend any of the workshops he's supposed to be attending. He exists.

Dan wishes Rome could be Rome for him, but it's a city bleached of life and color. It's just a city Dan is unhappy in. That's how he'll always remember it. It's another city Blair is not in.

Gossip Girl can be counted on for some things. In between denying her very existence, Dan sees pictures of Blair in an orange-red gown at a casino and who could that possibly be by her side?

Dan can remember Blair scribbling in her diary, usually while he himself was typing away. He never cared what she was writing because it wasn't his business but now it's all he can think about (when he allows himself to think at all). _This new romance with Dan is fun_ , she said, _fun_ , like a carnival game or something, _fun_ like a passing fancy. _Fun_ , something amusing to pass the time. In his blank Word document, all he types, over and over, is, _What if I never love anyone more than I love Chuck?_

He's made no progress on the book he brought Georgina here to help with and he finds his interest in Upper East Side antics has lessened considerably with distance. He doesn't know how many more stories of pre-teen drunkenness he can sit through. It's nauseating, actually, to think of the people he knows so young and already so damaged. While Serena was snorting coke for the first time, Dan was trying to beat level five. His own innocence is jarring.

And Dan isn't interested in feeling bad for anyone beside himself.

"I want to ruin them," Dan says. They're in the bathroom of a club and Dan is kind of high, Georgina's lipgloss sticky on his own mouth. He kisses her again, deeply, and puts his hand up her skirt. "I wanna expose everything."

"I know," Georgina says, kissing back fiercely, "But you won't _write_ anything."

Dan hooks her legs over his hips, picks her up and sets her on edge of the sink. He wonders if they remembered to lock the door. "Details."

Hands on his belt, Georgina murmurs, "Downward Spiral Dan's a lot more fun than the old one…"

"A rollercoaster ride of misery and shame," Dan remarks.

Dan shuts his eyes tight to avoid his reflection in the spotty mirror over Georgina's shoulder, his face shadowed and overtired. He doesn't sleep enough. He doesn't do a lot of things. His hair has grown out of his control, long enough to put in a short ponytail, which is what he does half the time. He hasn't shaved either. He hasn't shaved since – actually, the last time he shaved Blair had been helping him, because she liked to, with a careful and intent little expression, and afterwards she wouldn’t stop kissing his jaw.

Eyes shut, he only thinks of another time, a nicer bathroom, Blair's drunk giggles in his ear. He thinks of the way she moaned his name, loudly like she didn't care who heard. He thinks of how happy he was.

_Mm, Dan_ , she'd sighed, _You're so good_.

_Don't sound so surprised_ , he'd answered, sort of joking but sort of offended.

Blair had laughed, curled her fingers against his scalp and murmured, _Make sure I never forget_.

The specter of Blair follows him wherever he goes.

He buries his face in Georgina's throat, which helps; she smells like smoke and jasmine, nothing of Blair to be found.

It turns out they hadn't locked the door, so they get interrupted and kicked out. They go somewhere else because Georgina wants to dance, so that's what they do – they dance, she gives Dan drugs, they find another bathroom to fuck in.

Blair follows Chuck all over Europe. There's a spotted map and everything.

Dan couldn't even get her to follow him to a party.

He knows Blair doesn't give a fuck about him – she's made as much crystal clear – but he tries for revenge in small ways, fucks Georgina all over Rome and gets caught doing it. Alessandra leaves him a message about good publicity and pesters him about the book Dan's given up hope of ever writing. Georgina tells him all kinds of bullshit, but Dan's not-quite-novel remains the same, one untouched miserable line. He imagines Blair in her orange dress, leaning over that casino table, saying to Chuck, _How could I ever love anyone more than I love you?_

Sometimes he forgets to forget.

Sometimes the curve of Georgina's shoulder and the rumpled mass of dark curls tricks him, early morning light making her silhouette soft and hazy, turning her into another girl. Sometimes when he's half-dreaming he thinks it's Blair he's waking up beside.

One night he gets fall-down drunk and says Blair's name when he comes.

Georgina, being Georgina, is terribly amused by all this.

"Want me to put on a headband?" she asks. "I told you I'm good at pretend." Her smile is poisonous. "Or would you prefer a tiara and a big pink dress?"

"You know too fucking much," Dan says. He pins her to the bed beneath him, still privately mortified but more determined than ever to prove that he _doesn't_ care, he doesn't care at all.

Her legs part, dress riding up, and Dan leans his weight down, pressing against her. She arches up, wrists tense under his grip. "Did you fuck Blair like this? All dominant," she leans up best she can, licks at his mouth, "Did you hold her down like she was a bad girl and punish her with your –"

" _No_ ," Dan says, staring at her with mild horror.

"Maybe you should have," she says.

Dan's hard already with the way Georgina keeps rolling her hips but then he can't help picturing it – Blair underneath him with that wicked little smile, her eyes bright.

"No, I'm being silly," Georgina says. She slows her movements and Dan groans, needing _more_. "You're the one that likes to be held down, isn't that right? I bet you wanted little Miss Waldorf to tie you up and treat you mean, just like high school –"

It's not a fantasy Dan ever had, preferring his Blair to that Blair of times past, but he can't deny it's _interesting_ , adding a Constance uniform to the Blair in his head.

"Wasn't it fun to make Queen B moan?" Georgina murmurs.

He holds her wrists with one hand so he can reach down and unzip his jeans. He gets the condom out of his pocket, holds it out; she bites the corner and he pulls, tearing the packet open. He looks down at her as he rolls it on, both eyebrows raised, and says, "You need to shut up."

Georgina wriggles beneath him. "Make me."

When Dan comes he presses his face into Georgina's throat and bites his lip hard enough to hurt and says no one's name, says nothing.

Later he and Georgina lay side-by-side, strangely comfortable. He drapes an arm over her waist. In a bizarrely almost-sentimental gesture, she twists one of his curls around her finger and tucks it back into the mass, away from his face.

"Why did you come here with me?" he asks.

She runs her fingertips over his cheek, scratching slightly. "I figured I owed you one."

Dan's sitting there in bed, naked except for the sheet and mostly drunk, staring at that one question he'd written up a million times. The sunlight is edging in but Dan has yet to sleep tonight. Georgina, of course, has been pleasantly fucked into a coma.

Dan takes a swig from the bottle of wine they'd half-consumed earlier, setting it in his lap again after. He wonders if Georgina has called home to check on Milo. Probably not. Dan hasn't called home either.

The hotel phone is within reach, so Dan pushes his computer away and drags the phone into bed; he dials the first number he can remember offhand that isn't Blair's or Serena's. It rings, rings, rings.

"Hey," Nate says, easy and familiar, "Who's this?"

"Ciao," Dan says.

"Dan?"

"Unfortunately." Dan swallows another mouthful of wine. "I'd ask how everyone is, but I don't give a fuck."

Nate's voice sounds a little concerned, a little tired. "Are you drunk?"

"Always." There's a mocking edge to Dan's tone. _Always_ used to be the answer to a different question, once. "Are you? You should be. I recommend it. It really dims the sound of your own thinking. Though maybe that's not that much of a problem for you." Another swallow of wine. "I'm sorry. That was a dick thing to say."

Evenly, Nate says, "You don't sound too good, man."

"Look," Dan mumbles into the phone, "I know you've all got this fucking loyalty to Chuck – maybe he's got you all on payroll, I don't know –"

Quietly, Nate interrupts, "You heard about them."

"Yes, yes, yes," Dan says. "Heard's a funny choice, though, because I didn't _hear_ , you know, I asked – I asked and she told me there was nothing to worry about and then I didn't hear anything for a week and a half, next thing I know she's chasing that fucker across the goddamn ocean. She didn't even break up with me. Well." Dan slumps against the headboard. He finishes the bottle. "She broke up with my gmail account, I guess she thought that was good enough."

Nate is silent.

"What?" Dan asks. He can hear his voice getting louder and louder. "Didn't you know that I'm not important enough for her consideration? I mean, she's been giving me nonverbal clues all year that she didn't give a fuck about me, I guess it was about ti-" Dan breaks off, expelling a harsh breath. "How are they? Are they happy? If they are, you better tell me they're fucking miserable anyway."

More silence, enough that Dan thinks the call was lost, until finally Nate says, "I get my information like you do, man. I haven't heard from either of them."

Dan tilts his head back against the cold metal headboard, eyes closing. "Do you think she's happy?"

"I don't know."

"What is it about them," Dan muses. "Is he that good in bed? Because I have it on decent authority that I'm pretty good in bed and I don't think he knows anything I don't."

Nate laughs quietly. "I don't know," he says again. "This is just what they do."

"It's bullshit," Dan says.

"I know," Nate replies. "It's just how it goes." A beat, then, "How's Rome?"

"I can't remember," Dan says. "I'm drunk."

"The whole time?"

"Always," Dan repeats. "Didn't I say that?"

"Dan," Nate says disapprovingly, "I know you're not in a good place, but –"

"But what? You were stoned the first four years I knew you, are you really going to get on my case about this?" Dan shakes his head a little. "Now that you're such a grownup. With your suits and your paper, making all those decisions."

"I'm just saying, this isn't like you."

"That's probably for the best then."

"Where are you staying?"

"What kind of friend are you," Dan mutters, "You don't even know."

"We've all had a lot going on," Nate starts, but Dan interrupts again.

"Why do you want to know? What are you going to do, get on a plane?"

Again, "Where are you staying?"

Dan doesn't want to deal with this. "Roma," he declares, rolling his _r_ exaggeratedly.

"Dan," Nate tries again, "Where in Rome are you staying?"

Dan lets the phone drop onto the mattress, Nate's voice becoming smaller and more distant. He slumps down, nestles into the pillows.

Georgina stirs, or maybe she's been awake this whole time. Dan hears her pick the phone up. "Oh, hello, Nathaniel. Yes. Because he invited me. No, he can't come to the phone right now. He's in a fugue of depression because his girlfriend left him for someone who – and this is speaking as the girl who experienced the maiden voyage – isn't even a very good lay –"

Dan laughs. Georgina's good for comedy, at least.

One of her hands slips into his hair, scratching at his scalp. "Believe me, Dan's in very good hands. You don't have to worry, I'm taking excellent care of him." Georgina tips his head towards her so she can press a kiss to his mouth. "And as soon as I get off the phone with you, I'm going to give him a blowjob. So I think he's fine."

"Georgina," Dan complains. "Could you not –"

"Bye bye, Natie," she singsongs and then the phone clicks into the receiver.

Dan opens his eyes and meets hers. The night's mascara has smudged all around her eyes, making the gray all the starker.

"Nobody's called me since we got here," Dan tells her.

Hand flat on the center of his chest, Georgina pushes Dan back against the bed. She pulls the sheet away. "Poor baby," she murmurs, pressing her mouth to his stomach. "I'll make you feel better."

It's a few days later that Georgina wakes him up with a sharp pinch and a muttered, "Your boyfriend's here."

Dan swims up to wakefulness slowly. Face scrunched against the light spilling into the room, he opens one eye, rubbing the other with the heel of his hand.

Nate is standing in the center of the room with a duffel bag, a suitcase, and a frown.

Dan groans, falling back against the pillows. "It's too early for this," he says. "I'm not even wearing pants."

As soon as he _is_ wearing pants, and a shirt, and has tied his hair back, Nate drags Dan out into the bright morning. They sit on opposite sides of a café table.

"Don't you have work?" Dan asks. "Isn't – isn't flying off to another country kind of an issue?"

Nate shrugs. His gaze travels over the street; he catches the eye of some girl, grins. "I'm the boss," he reminds Dan, glancing back at him.

Dan smiles, just a little. "Why are you here, though? Not to be an asshole, but…I don't know, we haven't really been on great terms this year."

Between the book and Blair and the Spectator, it had been an odd mix of bad timing and bad blood.

"Yeah, but you're still one of my best friends," Nate says. "If I were in trouble, you'd be there."

"Yeah," Dan says. "Of course. But I'm not. I'm fine." Dan knows exactly what he's here for and exactly what he's doing. Dan has a plan – he can't see much farther into the future than _destroy everything_ but it's enough, it's something.

Nate observes Dan a moment. "You kind of seem like a mess right now."

"I'm in mourning," Dan quips, but they both know he's not joking.

Nate is still looking at him, strangely intent, especially for Nate. "Then I guess we should get drunk," he says, "after all."

The tenor of the city changes with Nate there. He brings the outside world with him. It's no longer the Dan and Georgina Show, the bright artificial whirl keeping his breaking point at bay with all kinds of numbing. Nate is here and he's everything that's familiar and solid and real.

"What a downer," Georgina complains.

They go out, the three of them. Dan can't remember being in a room with both of them at once since the summer Milo was born. Georgina is suspicious and narrow-eyed; she keeps one arm curled around Dan's neck, sitting tucked close to his side. Dan would push her away, but well. Whatever.

"How's the writing thing going?" Nate asks, all WASP politeness, as he sips his drink. "That program."

"I'm sure it's going fine," Dan says, "For the people attending it."

Silence lingers awkwardly then. Georgina rolls her eyes, gives Dan a slow wet kiss before getting up to go dance with some vaguely threatening-looking men.

Nate looks at him, eyebrow raised. "Georgina?" he asks, in a tone that invokes _really?_

Dan presses his lips together and doesn't answer.

The more Dan drinks, the easier it becomes to ignore Nate's obvious judgment. At least, that's the plan. Intoxication's defined the trip so far; Dan's in no hurry to change that. The times when he's sober are beginning to stand out as noteworthy, everything too rough and real. Like Nate. Nate is too real – but the more Dan drinks, the more he begins to thankfully blur.

Once the room starts tilting, Dan leans his forehead onto Nate's shoulder. Georgina is dancing with three guys, all sorts of hands on her hips, her waist. She spins in circles that make Dan nauseous.

"Why Georgina, man?" Nate wonders aloud, sipping his drink at a normal human pace. "Didn't get enough drama the first time?"

Dan snorts. "Masochist," he says. "One who derives pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from one's own pain or humiliation." He tries to sip his own drink without moving and only manages to douse Nate's sleeve. "Deliberate pursuit of or enthusiasm for an activity that appears to be painful, frustrating, or tedious."

Dan peers up and Nate peers down. Nate has that untrustworthy expression on his face that he always got when Dan tried to teach him new words, or when Dan used to correct Nate's papers. Dan doesn't do that anymore. Nate has a staff for that.

"I'm not happy," Dan says. "She makes it easier to not be happy."

Nate softens, expelling a breath. "I know," he says, "I know."

Of course he knows. The summer of the baby (because that is how it has come to be known, the summer that Dan had a baby, in isolation from all the summers where he did not) had been Nate's summer of _this_. It had been Nate's summer of not having Serena, of being trashed and slutting it up. Dan remembers being worried about Nate in a distant sort of way, because Milo had a fever or Milo wouldn't sleep, because Milo needed him more.

"What'd you think of me and Blair?" Dan asks. "You never said. Be honest."

"Honestly?" Nate examines him. "I didn't really think it was going to last."

Dan shuts his eyes, opens them. "That's okay," he says. "Because I hate her. I do. I want bad things to happen to her. Like…I want her hair to get stuck in her lipgloss when it's windy. And I hope she can never find exact change."

Nate laughs a little. "You don't hate her."

"I don't like her," Dan insists. "I love her. I don't like her at all."

Nate starts to respond, perhaps to disagree, but a hand is curling around Dan's arm and tugging him away. Georgina.

"Come on," she says. There's a small bite-bruise on her neck that Dan is fairly sure is not his doing. "This place is dull."

Georgina's grip on his wrist is tight, dragging him along and out into the warm night. Dan reaches back unthinkingly, hand landing on Nate's sleeve just to make sure he's still there.

They come upon one of the fountains, all cool white marble lit up at night, and if Dan didn't hate Rome he'd think it was the most beautiful place he'd ever been. It's a movie, Rome, a postcard, a picture. Georgina sits him on the edge, stands in the space between his legs and kisses him hard.

Nate clears his throat loudly. Georgina glares at him. "No one invited _you_ , Archibald."

Dan is worrying that lovebite on her throat; her fingers twitch in his hair, tighten. He hadn't really eaten today and he's starting to feel hazy, everything bright even with his eyes closed.

He used to sit on the edge of the bath while Blair was soaking. Sometimes they'd talk or sometimes he'd read to her. She'd eat macarons, listening with a small smile on her face. He'd have his eyes on her body because he couldn't not, waiting for the right shift or splash to reveal a brown-pink nipple. Sometimes he'd read her poems of his own. She always wanted to know if they were about her. They usually were but Dan always denied it until, laughing, Blair yanked him backwards into the bath with her, water everywhere.

Daydream and reality crash together as Dan hits the lukewarm fountain water with a startled splutter. He feels momentarily like he's drowning, even though it's not deep at all, and he emerges blinking water out of his eyes, tossing wet hair back.

"I don't like when you drift off _while_ we're making out," Georgina says, hands on hips.

"You're a fucking crazy goddamn bitch," Dan snaps. He's soaked, furious. Across the street, some kids laugh at him.

"You could've cracked his head open," Nate says, glaring at Georgina a little.

Georgina gets up on the marble ringing the water and spins in a circle. Her skirt, long and sheer and black, swirls around her legs. "When did Nate Archibald become the morality police," she sneers. "We were having so much fun until you got here."

Dan sits on the ledge next to where she's still dancing, legs still in the water, and presses his hands against the cool stone until his head stops swimming, or at least slows. Swimming, he thinks. Hilarious word choice, Dan. What a charming writer you are.

Dan starts wringing out his shirt. "Her definition of fun is different than our human definition."

"Nathaniel," Georgina says, "Do you know why Dan brought me here? Aside from needing someone who could fulfill his sexual delusions. I thought _I_ knew why but all he's done since he got here is –"

"I'm gonna write a book," Dan interrupts. He tries to swing his legs over the other side but only succeeds in almost toppling back into the water; Nate grabs him just in time, hauling him back onto the street. Dan grips the front of Nate's shirt with wet hands. "I'm gonna write a book and all of you are going to see how much you _suck_ – it's gonna expose your darkest –"

"Already did that, buddy," Nate interrupts, rolling his eyes. He gently unhooks Dan's fingers, looks him up and down. "We should get you back."

"There is no back," Dan mumbles, pressing his face into the front of Nate's shirt now. "No forward. Just right now."

He feels Nate sigh, cool hand dropping onto the back of Dan's neck. "Back to the _room_ ," Nate says.

So back to the room they go, Dan allowing himself to be manhandled. Nate sits Dan on the edge of the bed and hesitates briefly before starting to strip him of his wet clothes. Dan sits patiently as Nate pulls his shirt over his head, pulls his jeans off. Dan's too dizzy to be of much help. Nate disappears into the bathroom, presumably to hang Dan's clothes to dry, and Georgina takes the opportunity to sit in Dan's lap.

His skin is still damp, clammy. Her black skirt slithers over his legs and her hair trails over his arms. Dan leans up automatically to kiss her, sliding his hands over her ass.

"No," Nate says, incredulous. He gets a hand between them, pushes on Dan's chest so he falls back against the bed, malleable. "Not while I'm _right here_."

"Why not?" Georgina, looking irritated but contemplative. She leans way into Nate's personal space. "Wanna join in?"

"Stranger," Dan mumbles, yawns. "Third person's…supposed to be a stranger." His hair is wet, uncomfortably so. "But it _is_ Europe, so does that cancel out…?"

Georgina and Nate stare at him for a moment. Then she announces that if she's not getting it here, she'll go out and find it elsewhere. She climbs off Dan, exits the room like shadow. Dan shuts his eyes.

He feels the bed dip next to him. "Good riddance," Nate mutters. "I don't know how you put up with that."

"She's funny," Dan says quietly. "I don't mind her."

"You're the only one."

Dan peers at Nate, the shape of him in the dim light. Nate is leaning back on his arms and looking out the window. It strikes Dan, maybe because he hasn't really looked at Nate since he got here, that Nate looks older. Older than the image of him in Dan's head: perennial bangs and infrequent grins. Nate had been so angry about being half a character but Dan thought he'd gotten the most important parts – Nate's odd sincerity, his forthrightness, his sense of duty.

"Why did you come?" Dan murmurs, adding, "I'm glad you did."

Nate looks down at him. "Everyone left," he says simply. "I didn't have a reason to stay."

Dan frowns. He knew Chuck and Blair were gone – obviously – but he hadn't heard anything about Serena. Not that he _wants_ to, he reminds himself. "Lola?"

"Broke up." Nate leans back, eyes on the ceiling. "She got this part." He shrugs, uninterested. "Some tour."

Dan shifts to his side, tucking his arm under his head so he can look at Nate's profile. "You sound just gutted."

Nate glances at him, half-smiles. "I wasn't gonna marry her or anything."

He wonders if Blair's getting married. Again. He's not going to ask.

"I'd take her back tomorrow," Dan says. Sooner. If Blair walked through that door this minute, Dan would drop everything and take her in his arms.

To Nate's credit, he rolls with the change in conversation. Softly, he asks, "Even now?"

"Even now," Dan says. He tilts his head to meet Nate's eyes and finds Nate already looking at him. "How do I stop? How do I fall out of it?"

"Out of what?" Nate asks.

"Love," Dan says.

Nate's brows come together a little, enough pity on his face to make Dan feel even more pathetic. "I don't think you get a say in when, man."

Dan expels a long sigh. "I didn't get a say in any of this."

When Dan wakes up, headachey and hungover, Nate is still there, asleep next to him. Sober, he's kind of embarrassed that he slept next to Nate mostly naked all night. Georgina is perched in the windowsill, watching. She's always watching.

"Have a gay old time?" she asks. She brings a cigarette to her mouth, exhales smoke.

Dan rubs his eyes. He reaches for the cigarette and she hands it over. "Is it morning?"

She nods. "You look just _wonderful_."

"You pushed me into a _public fountain_."

"You told me you didn't want to think about her," Georgina says, eyebrow arched.

Dan stares at her. "You know," he takes a drag, then points the cigarette at her, "too fucking much."

She smiles a little. "Come on." She stands, holding out a hand for his as she drifts towards the bathroom. "Let's go take a shower. You smell like copper and tourism."

They squeeze into the narrow shower stall together.

Dan inspects Georgina's upturned face as she works shampoo into his hair. He's always thought she looked surprisingly young without makeup on but no more harmless, really. Something about her is still dangerous, all edges. She could probably just as easily strangle him with the shower curtain as keep washing his hair.

"You like me, don't you?" Dan realizes. "Your equivalent of liking people."

Georgina tips his head back into the spray of water. "You're a good person," she says, lip curling in distaste. "Normally that makes me want to purge, but, I don't know. It works for you, I suppose."

Dan leans in and presses a light kiss to her mouth. "Thanks," he says.

Georgina returns the kiss, sinks her teeth into his bottom lip. "Is that really how you say thank you?"

Dan laughs. "No ma'am," he says. He runs his hands over her slick wet skin. "I guess not."

Later he and Nate tourist around the city. It feels like Dan's very first day here but he has the sense that it's one of his last. Nate is surprisingly agreeable about viewing all of Dan's historical landmarks, excited even about some of them, like the Colosseum.

"Dude," he says, " _Gladiator_ was awesome."

Dan tries not to fall in love with the city. He's only going to leave it.

Somewhere between ruins and museums, Nate says, "I'm worried about you, Dan. I think you should come home."

Dan looks up from the map he's consulting. "I was wondering when you were going to say that."

"You can't keep –" Nate hesitates, seemingly unsure as to how to proceed. "Can't keep doing what you're doing."

Dan tilts his head. "What am I doing?"

"The drinking…" Nate says. "Sleeping with Georgina…"

"I'm allowed to drink," Dan points out. "I'm also allowed to make whatever bad relationship decisions I want. I didn't break up your summer of fun with Chuck's black book, did I? And that was _really_ stupid."

Nate looks Dan up and down and says only, "Have you seen yourself lately?"

Dan's jaw tightens a little and he looks away. He looks _fine_. "I don't want to go back."

"You know you have to," Nate says, "At some point."

Dan has been thinking about that lately, that _at some point_. He's been vaguely entertaining the idea of going to London to visit Jenny and Eric, then maybe Hudson. Ignore New York City entirely, like it doesn't exist.

"I can't –" Dan shakes his head. "I can't see everyone again." Those ties all feel so very, very severed. No more friends, no more family, just a city full of strangers.

Except Nate, he guesses. There's Nate.

"You know you're going to see her again," Nate says. "There's no way around it."

"There is, actually." Dan folds the map into a crumpled mess and starts walking. "I could just _not_ see her."

Nate, of course, obnoxiously keeps up. "I know what it's like, okay? I've got some experience facing an ex after losing out to another guy."

Meaning Chuck. Meaning Dan.

"It's not that easy," Dan says. You don't know what Blair and I had, he thinks. It was different with us. No one understands my pain. All that adolescent bullshit.

"I _know_ ," Nate says again, impatient.

Dan stops. "I slept with Serena," he says.

Nate blinks at him. "Dude."

Dan purses his lips. "She filmed it."

Nate frowns, brows coming together quickly, startled. "Shit," he says. "Where was I when everyone went crazy?"

"Approving layouts?" Dan guesses. "Having weird espionage sex games with older women?"

Nate gives him a look.

"What?" Dan says. "Is that not what you were doing?"

"That's not the _point_ ," Nate says.

Amused, "What is the point?"

"Why'd you do it?"

Dan shrugs. "Drowning my sorrows, I guess."

Nate thinks about that for a minute. "Yeah, but if that's all it was, you could have done that with anybody," he says. "But you slept with Serena."

Dan has, very purposefully, not given much, if any, thought to Serena lately. Part of him is still furious, still hearing her voice saying all the things he was already hearing in the back of his head: she's not coming, she's already chosen Chuck, she doesn't love you.

But the rest of him knows it wasn't an accident that he ended up with Serena that night and it wasn't entirely drunken manipulation. Some small, subconscious part of Dan knew that if he was going to hurt Blair, that was the way to do it. She didn't have to love him for that to hurt. History would make it sting enough.

"I don't want to talk about Serena," Dan says. Add her to the list.

"Fine," Nate says. "We don't have to talk. But you need to sober up. And stop sleeping with Georgina. And shave. And then you need to come home."

Dan mutters, half a joke, "And cut my hair?"

Nate shrugs, says easily, "If you want. I like the hair. The rest stands."

Dan knows he's right. He's running himself into a dead end, running away.

" _Fine_ ," he says. "But you have to break the news to Georgina."

Ultimately, there's no need to break any news. Perhaps anticipating how the day would go, Georgina and her things are gone from the room by the time Dan and Nate return. Dan is oddly disappointed by the lack of goodbye.

Blair is wearing a purple dress, a deep muted plum, with a nipped waist and a puff of skirt, flouncy and short. The neckline is a deep v, revealing collarbone and the dip between her breasts and even a sliver of stomach. Dan wants to put his mouth there, on that narrow slice of revealed skin, pale against the dress.

Dan doesn't know why he's here.

He has no ties to these people anymore. He's not anyone's stepson or boyfriend. He is a free agent, living somewhere a million miles away from the Upper East Side. He's fifteen all over again.

But it's a _Spectator_ something-or-other and Nate asked him to come, so Dan is here. _I flew five thousand miles for you_ , Nate had reminded him, all guilt, _I think you can get on the train uptown_.

Dan had rumbled and grumbled and said Nate was more like Anne Archibald than he wanted to admit but, ultimately, he came. He spent the first hour happily a stranger, everyone in the room save Nate's secretary utterly unknown to him. No former family, no former friends.

Until Blair. In that dress.

She hasn't seen Dan yet and he hopes she never does, but unfortunately he can't keep his eyes off her, especially after those months apart. He wonders if his broken heart has made her more beautiful or if she's always been this acutely, terribly, painfully lovely.

He watches her over the shoulder of a socialite he's half-listening to, injecting a few _mm_ 's and _yes I totally understand_ 's into the conversation whenever there's enough of a pause. His mind is entirely elsewhere. He's watching the way Blair fake-laughs, lifts her champagne flute to her glossy mouth. He hates her. He wants so badly to kiss her throat.

And it strikes Dan that he will never ever do that again – he will never kiss Blair again.

He won't ever get to kiss her or hold her, run his hands over her skin, press her into his sheets, make her laugh, wraps his hands around her delicate wrists, unbutton her dresses, slide off her stockings, read to her, fall asleep with her, wake up with her, thread his fingers through her hair, kiss the dimple that forms when she grins.

"I have to go," he says suddenly. The socialite pauses midsentence and blinks at him, a slow fan of false lashes. "I have to leave."

It's funny – for so long he had only her friendship and it was enough. He was content with being near her, trying to give her what she wanted. Only now that he's seen the rest of it, seen what he _could_ have, he can never go back.

He's mentally composing an apology to Nate as he makes his way to elevator. Nate will have to understand. He'll have to, because Dan just can't be here, he can't. Not with her, not so soon.

Dan jabs the button roughly a few times, but the elevator seems to be stopping at every single floor tonight. He hits the button again.

Then, softly, he hears, "Hi Dan."

_I told Chuck he didn't have my heart anymore._

Dan's mouth goes dry and his head goes blank and it's not until the doors finally ding open that he's jolted into saying, "Hi."

He turns to look at her, a little wilting purple flower. People get out of the elevator, get on; the doors close without Dan behind them.

"You look nice," she says, still all soft-voiced. Her gaze sweeps over him, lingering at his hair, the fit of his suit.

"Don't," Dan says.

Blair's standing with her ankles together, hands clasped, a perfect prim little picture. "Don't what?" she asks, like she doesn't know.

What was all that, he wants to say. His tongue presses against the back of his teeth, urging him to vocalize. What was it all for? Why did she kiss him like she did, like she couldn't help herself? Why did she look at him like she did – peering from underneath her eyelashes, pleased and calculating? Why did she smile so much? Were they all false, every last one of them? Why did it seem like she loved him when it was all bullshit, all pity?

There's nothing going on inside Dan's head right now except a low-frequency panic.

"You're with Chuck now," Dan says. He is utterly still, stony.

Blair shakes her head a little. "He doesn't want me."

"How is that possible?" Dan says, before he can even think about it. He looks down, embarrassed.

_Good_ is what he should say. Good. Be unhappy. Stew in it.

Blair's smile is sad and wistful at once. "Oh," she says lightly, "People do stupid things all the time."

"Sure," he says. "Right. All the time." He pauses. "Is that a pointed statement?"

"You had a busy summer," Blair says.

"So did you." He tucks his hands into his pockets just to do something with them. He hadn't meant the summer; he wanted to know if she was talking about them, about leaving him.

"Yours seemed…" Blair trails off.

"What?" he says, slightly sharply, anticipating her judgment. "Seemed what?"

Blair shrugs. "Georgina Sparks is a mistake you seem to keep making."

Dan tries valiantly to bite his tongue but can't. "She's not the only one."

Blair meets his eyes, something wounded in hers lurking just out of sight. "That's true," she says finally, quietly, "You make a lot of mistakes."

"Maybe I should just be celibate from now on."

"Don't punish everyone for your faux pas," Blair says, smiling a little.

Dan answers with a frown, because he doesn't understand – if that's what she thinks, why did she leave him?

Blair looks down again, gaze on some halfway mark between them on the floor. "Were you leaving?"

"Yeah," Dan says, clears his throat. "Yes. Tell Nate…I'm sorry I had to go."

Blair nods. "Of course."

Dan watches her until the doors of the elevator close between them. Her eyes are on the ground and she's looking as sad as he's ever seen her. His instinct is still to go to her, give her a speech and a hug, remind her of all the parts of her that are wonderful. Instead he lets the doors close. He breathes a small sigh of relief.

Dan thinks of her pale face, the downturned curve of her mouth, the dark sweep of eyelashes. Her sadness is at least a little of the reason he fell so in love with her. Her sadness and her strength, equal parts tied together.

Now he can only see her misery and he doesn't know what to do with that.

That night Blair calls him. It's the first time in almost four months. Dan decides he won't pick up but then he does, of course.

"I had an awful dream last night," Blair says, her voice the kind of soft it gets when she's sleepy.

Dan doesn't understand how she can talk to him like this, like nothing's changed. But, since he has absolutely no dignity left, he asks, "Was I in it?"

"Mhm," she says. "You were the only part that wasn't awful."

"Blair," he sighs.

"I know," she says quietly, apologetic.

"Do you?" Dan says. "Do you know? If you knew, I'm not sure you would be calling me, telling me I'm in your goddamn dreams."

Dan shuts his eyes and takes a breath.

"You asked," she says, defensive.

"That's right, I did," Dan says. "I should learn to stop asking you questions, you just answer me with bullshit."

Blair doesn't say anything.

"Why now?" he says. "Why haven't you called me once before now?"

"You were _busy_." She says _busy_ the same way she says _Georgina_ , and Dan can practically see her nose wrinkle. "You should be more careful. There were pictures _everywhere_."

That was the point, he thinks. "I guess I wasn't really interested in being careful."

Blair is silent, then, "No. I suppose I wasn't either." Her voice changes, just a little, a raw edge entering in. "I know everyone expected us to make a mess of it, Humphrey, but I didn't think it would be like this."

Hearing her call him Humphrey again is almost worse than seeing her.

"It didn't have to be a mess," Dan says, low.

"I thought," Blair starts, then stops.

Dan waits.

"I thought," she begins again, hesitant, "that it was…was a matter of me being strong enough to take it." She clears her throat. "Him. Chuck. I thought that was the problem. I wasn't strong enough to – to withstand him."

Dan prompts, softly, "And?"

"And it's still so wretched," Blair says, choked up. "I thought I was strong enough – I felt _fine_ and it had been so long since I felt –"

"It has nothing to do with you," Dan says. He leans forward in his seat. He wishes he was there with her. He wishes he knew how to stop caring. "It doesn't matter – Chuck's a fucking black hole of bullshit –"

"I'm sorry I didn't call," Blair interrupts, "I've been so stupid and so blind –"

Dan remembers Serena's breathy moan in his ear.

"No," he says, "Not just you, I –"

"Remember W?" she says suddenly. As though he could forget. "I really miss that." She pauses while Dan wonders if he's supposed to be following this conversational change. "Did you love me then?"

Dan bites his lip.

"I think so," he offers. "I don't know. That was the first time I ever wanted to kiss you."

"So straightforward," Blair says with a little teary laugh. "You just wanted to kiss me." He hears her sniffle. "I miss that too."

"You don't have to be with him," Dan says.

"Don't I?" Blair sounds like she did months and months ago, caught between Louis and Chuck. Dan's sitting in the same spot at the kitchen island as he was then; it's easy to picture her sitting on his couch with her teacup, pregnant and terrified. "Isn't that the point? Chuck and Blair, Blair and Chuck. Isn't that what I'm supposed to want?" Her voice is bitter. "Aren't we _soulmates_?"

Dan expels a breath – _What if I never love anyone like I love Chuck?_ – and tries to ignore, for a brief mad moment, that he's had that relationship's entire history weighing on him for god knows how long. But he can't. He's been there since before Blair was anything to him. He's talked her in and out of telling Chuck she loves him for years. He's responsible for that fucking video (which echoes in his head almost as much as the other, _I love you more and more every day_ ). He knows too much. He's seen too much.

"I can't talk about this with you," Dan says. "We can't go back to being friends like this, Blair, I – I can't. I'm sorry you're – you're so sad, but it's really killing me to even be on the phone with you."

"I don't have you or Serena," Blair murmurs. "Did you know that no one has any idea where she is? Lily's trying to find her but she can't… I lost my best friends and – and Chuck –" She laughs again. " _Chuck_ is supposed to be more than enough, right?"

Dan frowns. "Did he do something to you?"

"Nothing he hasn't done before," Blair says.

Dan doesn't really like the sound of that. "If you're in trouble," he says haltingly, "I'm – I'm here." He clears his throat. "Always. But I can't…I can't go back. It can't be like it was."

Quietly, she says, "You're a good person, Dan Humphrey."

There's a solid chance he was the last person to see Serena, he realizes. And now nobody knows where she is.

"Don't go throwing around accolades just yet," Dan says. He presses his lips together, wavering, and finally adds, "We had a fight. Serena and I."

"Oh?" He can imagine the flood of questions she's keeping at bay.

"Before I left," he says. "We, uh…" Dan looks down at his hands, up at the ceiling, over the empty loft. His father isn't even here, off visiting Jen. "Serena and I slept together. We had – we were together the night before I left. She came to see me in the morning, I said I never wanted to see her again, and that was it. She left, I left."

_There is no us, Serena. There's only you._

Silence.

Slowly, "You slept together."

Dan nods even though she obviously can't see it. "Yes." Before she says anything else, he's adding, "Right about the time you were running back to Chuck."

"I –" Blair says, "I have to go."

And the line clicks off.

Nate comes over. They drink beer on the roof while the city turns in sleepily around them, sunset gone sepia.

"Blair asked about you," Nate says. "The other night. At the party."

Dan sighs. "Yeah. She called me."

Nate looks at him, waiting, and Dan just spills – he tells Nate everything, from the phone call to before, his fight with Serena, every last little thing. By the time he's done, the sun has dipped beyond the horizon and everything is hazy-dark, lit up with streetlights and apartment windows.

Nate whistles low, tips his beer back for a sip. "Wow." He glances at Dan. "Your love life's a real mess."

Dan frowns at him. "At least I'm not seeing anyone's non-mother or sister-cousin."

Nate laughs. "Hey, I didn't know any of that at the time."

Dan finishes his beer and sets the empty bottle carefully next to the rest of them, a straight little line. "What do I do?"

Nate drops a hand onto his shoulder, squeezes. "Just gotta wait it out, man."

Dan hasn't voiced this, for fear of coming off like the heroine of a romantic comedy. So he's quiet when he says, "What if I don't get over her? Ever?"

Nate's smile is fond, sympathetic. "You will."

"That's it?" Dan says. "You don't even have any good platitudes? Fish in the sea, that kind of thing?"

Nate reaches up to ruffle Dan's hair, which he finally cut. "Don't be such a girl."

"Thank you," Dan says, swiping Nate's beer. "That is excellent. I open my heart to you, expose my innermost insecurities, and you call me a girl."

"Dude, you're doing it again," Nate says. "Chill out with that. And give me my drink back."

"My roof, my rules," Dan says, ducking out of the way when Nate tries to grab it back.

In the end, Dan can't write the book he told Georgina he would. It's not in him.

He keeps thinking of Blair's face in the gap between the elevator doors, Serena in his apartment that last morning, Georgina in the shower, Nate sitting on the edge of his bed in Rome.

He doesn't know where the book is going. He doesn't have any plans for it. He has no idea what to tell Alessandra, though she won't stop emailing him. So far Dan only has a scene, one image.

A girl in a train station. She is prim and put-together, self-possessed. It's impossible to tell if she's coming or going. This will remain true for the length of the novel.

A girl in a train station.

That's how the book should start.  



End file.
